THE HIMALAYAN TALK: INDIAN GOVERNMENT FOOD SECURITY PROGRAM RISKIER

http://youtu.be/NrcmNEjaN8c
The government of India has announced food security program ahead of elections in 2014. We discussed the issue with Palash Biswas in Kolkata today.
http://youtu.be/NrcmNEjaN8c
Ahead of Elections, India's Cabinet Approves Food Security Program
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By JIM YARDLEY
http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/indias-cabinet-passes-food-security-law/

THE HIMALAYAN TALK: PALASH BISWAS CRITICAL OF BAMCEF LEADERSHIP

[Palash Biswas, one of the BAMCEF leaders and editors for Indian Express spoke to us from Kolkata today and criticized BAMCEF leadership in New Delhi, which according to him, is messing up with Nepalese indigenous peoples also.
He also flayed MP Jay Narayan Prasad Nishad, who recently offered a Puja in his New Delhi home for Narendra Modi's victory in 2014.]

THE HIMALAYAN DISASTER: TRANSNATIONAL DISASTER MANAGEMENT MECHANISM A MUST

We talked with Palash Biswas, an editor for Indian Express in Kolkata today also. He urged that there must a transnational disaster management mechanism to avert such scale disaster in the Himalayas.
http://youtu.be/7IzWUpRECJM

THE HIMALAYAN TALK: PALASH BISWAS BLASTS INDIANS THAT CLAIM BUDDHA WAS BORN IN INDIA

THE HIMALAYAN VOICE: PALASH BISWAS DISCUSSES RAM MANDIR

Published on 10 Apr 2013
Palash Biswas spoke to us from Kolkota and shared his views on Visho Hindu Parashid's programme from tomorrow ( April 11, 2013) to build Ram Mandir in disputed Ayodhya.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77cZuBunAGk

THE HIMALAYAN TALK: PALSH BISWAS FLAYS SOUTH ASIAN GOVERNM

Palash Biswas, lashed out those 1% people in the government in New Delhi for failure of delivery and creating hosts of problems everywhere in South Asia.
http://youtu.be/lD2_V7CB2Is

Palash Biswas on BAMCEF UNIFICATION!

THE HIMALAYAN TALK: PALASH BISWAS ON NEPALI SENTIMENT, GORKHALAND, KUMAON AND GARHWAL ETC.and BAMCEF UNIFICATION!
Published on Mar 19, 2013
The Himalayan Voice
Cambridge, Massachusetts
United States of America

What makes Jharkhand the hunting ground ofIndia's human traffickers and why, despite key arrests, is it still business as usual for those who trade in humans?

(Clockwise from above) A trafficking survivor at her home in Gumla district, where she has become an outcast.

A bout 50 km south of Ranchi, in Khunti district, a narrow dirt road leadsto Ganloya village.(Clockwise from above) A trafficking survivor at her home in Gumladistrict, where she has become an outcast.

Despite the scorching heat, girls play barefoot in a clearing by a ricefield. Nearby, a group of men sitting on a

charpoy drink hadiya or rice beer. Of late, the village has been nicknamedChora Ganloya — village of thieves — because of the growing number of youngmen turning to crime, primarily the trafficking of girls to 'placementagencies' in Delhi and the National Capital Region.

Khunti is one of five districts that form the Jharkhand belt — the othersare Gumla, Simdega, Lohardaga and Latehar. The Jharkhand belt suppliesdomestic help to thousands of homes in Delhi and satellite towns such asNoida, Gurgaon and Faridabad.

Unlike the state's industrially developed districts, think Ranchi, Dhanbador Bokaro, endemic poverty marks these districts, with more than 35% of thetribal population living below the poverty line. These pockets are also theNaxal war zones of Jharkhand.

These factors make it prime hunting ground for traffickers such as42-year-old Mahto, who had amassed assets worth over Rs 65 crore in Delhiand Jharkhand, having allegedly trafficked about 3,000 girls and women bythe time of his arrest last October, the result of a joint operation by theDelhi police Crime Branch and the Jharkhand Anti-Human TraffickingUnit(AHTU).

"Most of these placement agencies are organised crime syndicates and theyregularly indulge in trafficking of women and children. The business ofplacement agencies has been fuelled by huge demand of maids from easterntribal states in the National Capital Region of Delhi," noted the UnitedNations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) India Country Assessment Report,2013.

About 4,000 children have gone missing in Jharkhand over the past 10 years.Of these, 1,000 are yet to be traced, according to the CID. Approximately42,000 girls have been trafficked from Jharkhand to metropolitan cities, asper the NGO coalition Action against Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation ofChildren (ATSEC), making it a major hub of human trafficking in India.

'DILLI RETURN'

Anubhuti Nag*, a tribal girl who will turn 18 next month, was among thefirst few girls in Patsera, a Naxal-affected village of about 100 familiesin Gumla district, to make the trip to Delhi.

Within two weeks of her arriving in the city, a man named Mukesh Kumar, aJharkhand native in his late 40s running a placement agency, hired her forRs 5,000 per month. Anubhuti's job was to receive potential recruits at therailway station, bring them to the office of the agency, keep a check onabout 50 girls placed across the city by the agency, and accompany the newrecruits on their maiden visits to the homes of their employers.

Gradually, Mukesh spotted a potential trafficker in Anubhuti and offeredher Rs 10,000 for each girl she could get from her village to Delhi. Oneafternoon, Anubhuti discovered that the bag containing all her ID documentswas missing. She confronted Mukesh.

"Don't pay me, but please return my documents. I want to go home," shereportedly said. When he wouldn't listen, she became angry and slapped him.Enraged, Mukesh and two aides raped her, she says. The following week,Anubhuti was rescued in a joint operation by the Jharkhand and Delhipolice, but the rape was not recorded or investigated, on her request.

Back in their villages, girls like Anubhuti find themselves out of place asthe government does not run any programmes for their rehabilitation.Wearing branded jeans and a T-shirt, with a smartphone in her hand, shelooks starkly different from the rest of Patsera's inhabitants. She is moreconfident, speaks fluent Hindi with a smattering of English words such as'park', 'society', 'hello' and 'bye'.

The villagers call them 'Dilli return' girls. There are few prospects forthem here. Anubhuti supports her family of five on her savings of Rs25,000. She hasn't thought about what she, or they, will do once that isexhausted.

Alakh Singh, member of the district child welfare committee, aquasi-judicial body, says that in addition to the financial insecurity,Anubhuti and others like her find it difficult to readjust to village life.This makes them vulnerable to re-trafficking, he adds.

A QUESTION OF SURVIVAL

The signs of distress are visible in the numerous child care institutionsthat have mushroomed across the state. And in the fact that many familiesdo not come to claim daughters that have been rescued. Anjali Munda*, 15, atribal from a village in Khunti and a trafficking survivor, has lost hopeof ever being reunited with her parents. They were contacted by the policethree months ago, but have stayed away.

At her Sahyog Village (Sahyog is Hindi for assistance) facility alone,there are more than a dozen survivors in the same predicament. "Someparents are not willing to take them back. Others don't have the resourcesto support them," says Altaf Khan of Sahyog Village.

As with most survivors, for Anjali too, the first point of contact in her'life-changing' journey was an acquaintance based in the Capital — afriend's cousin who worked in a jeans-manufacturing unit in Delhi. "Heasked me if I wanted to see the city. One day I left with him withouttelling anyone. I think this is why my parents are angry with me and do notcome to get me," she says.

Weekly markets and village fairs, local buses, and crossroads in Ranchicity where villagers gather in search of work are points of contact fortraffickers and potential victims.

"These chowks are also now becoming recruitment centres for agents who lurewomen and girls to Delhi for work," noted a report on human trafficking inJharkhand prepared by Shakti Vahini (Vehicle of Strength), an NGO workingagainst organised crime.

While some leave without telling their families, there are parents who sendtheir children off with 'agents' in the hope that they will find employmentin a big city.

Even those that are placed in jobs as promised end up isolated anddependent, forced to work as domestic help in slave-like conditions. Mostare never paid.

ATSEC found that only 25% of the women who leave the Jharkhand belt withagents remain in contact with their families. "Usually, parents stophearing from their children and the agents stop taking their calls," saysRishi Kant of Shakti Vahini.

Approaching police is a taboo in Naxalaffected villages, so many casesremain unreported. The women just disappear, and there is no one equippedto look for them.

BUSINESS AS USUAL

In Gumla's villages, the writing is literally on the wall. Messages warningpeople about human trafficking are scribbled on the exterior walls ofhouses and read, "Saavdhan. Kahin aapke bacche maanav

Although the state government has taken some initiative to combattrafficking, establishing district child protection forces and specialjuvenile police units, implementation and enforcement are poor.

The result is that the trade continues unabated, even as Panna Lal Mahtoand 75 others are lodged in Khunti prison, facing charges of trafficking.

"It's like a flood. You stop the flow from one side, and it finds anotherway," said Aradhna Singh, sub-inspector with the AHTU in Khunti, one of 225such units set up across the country by the union home ministry in 2011-12."According to our information, Mahto's aides remain very active."

Earlier this month, Mahto's nephew, Manan*, a minor, was arrested at Ranchirailway station with three girls. None of the arrests seems to havedeterred the rest of the trafficking network. The crackdown has justprompted them to modify their operations.

"Recruiting minor traffickers is a new trend," Singh says. "It is difficultto prove their criminality in such cases. Even if it is proved, they willbe tried under the Juvenile Justice Act and not the Indian Penal Code."

Many traffickers now opt for Ranchi-Delhi Rajdhani train to evade the taskforces that now watch the Jharkhand Sampark Kranti Express, dubbed theSlavery Express. "On the Rajdhani, you don't raise suspicion. Who wouldexpect a trafficker to travel in the second class coach of anair-conditioned superfast train?" says Baidnath Kumar, program officer atDiya Seva Sansthan, a grassroot organisation in Ranchi.

The market has changed too. "Some of the victims are sent to Haryana wherethere is a demand of brides… Jharkhand women and children have been also inhigh demand to work as bonded labour in Haryana and Punjab," according tothe UNODC report.

Will Jharkhand ever tackle its trafficking menace? Mahto offered a worryingperspective during his arrest. "I have given jobs to far more people thanthe state government has," he reportedly said.